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Modern Marvels celebrates the ingenuity, invention and imagination found in the world around us. From commonplace items like ink and coffee to architectural masterpieces and engineering disasters, the hit series goes beyond the basics to provide insight and history into things we wonder about and that impact our lives. This series tells fascinating stories of the doers, the dreamers and sometime schemers that create everyday items, technological breakthroughs and manmade wonders. The hit series goes deep to explore the leading edge of human inspiration and ambition. Episode Big Rigs of Combat: Tanks – The rousing story of the tank, from its primitive appearance in WWI to the high tech world of modern tank warfare, with emphasis on the tank’s Golden Age during WWII. The story of how the tank has determined the fate of nations in the past and how they will continue to do so in the future. Today’s state of the art tank, the Abrams is the realization of over 4000 years of armored development. Since first waging war against one another men have dreampt of armor, a way of shielding vulnerable flesh in bloody battle. That dark dream was first realized by Egyptian and Mesopotamian warriors in 2500 B.C. with the invention of the chariot. The early attempt at armoring things were first of all to prevent the enemy weapons from doing damage to the people that were using the chariots, the second thing was to provide mobility to that armored platform, so you have two things, armored protection and mobility. In 217 B.C. Hanibal, one of antiquities greatest generals, used armored war elephants to lead the Carthaginians against the Roman Empire. The fearsome beasts not only protected his soldiers, they terrified his enemies.